Walnuts

“Walnuts” -- A Peggy Scribble
By Michael Kroetch

There was a park only a block from our house. We never went to it. We liked the one downtown more. That one had these busted people lying around without socks. They would ask other people for money or cigarettes or food. But not us. They never asked us for anything. It bothered Peggy how they smelled. She said it would be better if they took a bath, but she sat with them anyway because they always told good stories and Peggy liked stories.
Her favorite was told by the guy with one leg who sometimes sold roses or walnuts. She knew his story by heart. Yet whenever we went to the park and found him there, she insisted he tell it again. She would go over and stand in front of him and look down at him with her eyes unblinking, her arms crossed and no smile at all until he asked what she wanted. You know, she said. Tell it. Tell me the story.
He laughed to himself a little, waved his hand in the air as if to brush her off, and then looked at her fiercely as a dog deciding whether or not it should bite her. You really want me to tell it… again?
She didn’t answer.
Instead she sat herself down in front of him and got ready to listen. For her the listening required a great deal of energy and she needed time to prepare. Me, I couldn’t do it. Not again. I’d heard the story enough times. So I walked over to a tree. From the top I could see the park spread out beneath me like a map. While I sat up there I thought this must be how the dead feel: a little dizzy, a little sick, but safe from anything ever changing on them.